Live From New York - James H. Miller [127]
DICK EBERSOL:
That sketch gave me my best battle ever with the censors. Part one airs on a Saturday night. The following Thursday, I’m summoned to the office of Corydon Dunham, who was then the corporation counsel to whom broadcast standards reported. I went to his office in jeans and a sweatshirt and he’s Savile Row to the nth degree — but a nice man. And he said, “Dick, I just have to tell you that we will not be able to air ‘The Assassination of Buckwheat, Part Two’ this weekend.” I said, “What are you talking about? It was read at read-through yesterday, it was a killer piece, there are no language problems, everybody loved it.” He said, “But there’s real violence implications here. Somebody gets shot in this piece.” I said, “Cory, that aired last week. Buckwheat was assassinated last week. Everybody laughed.” He said, “Yes, but do you realize that on Sunday night, the night after your show airs, we’re presenting your friend Don Ohlmeyer’s docudrama Special Bulletin, and we’re having real problems with that because people will think it’s real.” It won the Emmy that year as the best single program shown on television. It was about nuclear terrorists at Charleston Harbor. Cory was convinced it was going to be Orson Welles’s War of the Worlds all over again. He said, “People are just going to think we are out of our minds with all this violence.” I said, “Oh, come on — we’re on the night before, we’re finishing off a comedic premise, and you’re telling me I can’t air it?” And I had sworn I was never going to do something like this, but I told him, “In forty-five minutes I’m going to hold a press conference announcing that I’m not doing the show anymore.” I’d never done that; that was always Lorne’s trip, threatening to quit. But I said, “I’m leaving, and I’m going to make abundantly clear the height of insanity that went behind this bullshit decision.” And I said, “See you,” with a smile on my face and I left. Cory called Grant Tinker and Grant laughed in his face when he heard the story. And before the forty-five minutes were up, Cory called me and said, “Never mind.”
ANDY BRECKMAN, Writer:
There was this rumor circulating that over the summer Ebersol was on a private NBC plane talking to the network brass about how badly they needed Eddie Murphy to come back in the fall — and I think at the time Joe Piscopo was also a linchpin — but they needed Eddie Murphy or they didn’t have a show. There would be no show without him. And they said, “We have to pay them whatever it takes.” You know — bend over backwards as far as scheduling and pay. And the rumor that we heard was that this phone call was picked up by a ham radio operator somewhere in the Midwest, and he recorded it, and that tape somehow got back to Eddie Murphy. And so he went into negotiations knowing that he had them over a barrel. It’s a great rumor, and I remember it circulating. Unfortunately, I don’t know if it’s true.
JOHN LANDIS, Film Director:
After the accident, the tragedy of The Twilight Zone, I was so freaked out I just said to my agent, “I’ll take any job offered. I just want to work.” So Jeff Katzenberg sent me this script of Black or White — later changed to Trading Places — and I said that Pryor would be brilliant in it. But Katzenberg said, “What do you think of Eddie Murphy?” and I had to say, “Who?” And he said, “We’ve made this picture called 48 Hrs. and it just previewed.” They tried to fire Eddie off of 48 Hrs., but Walter Hill saved his job. When it previewed, Eddie tested through the roof. So they gave me a tape of all his things he’d done on Saturday Night Live, and I said, “Kind of young, but he’s funny. I especially love the James Brown Hot Tub. I’ll meet him.” So I fly to New York to meet with Eddie, who’s a baby, like nineteen, whatever, and we come down